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Overview

The market for tickets to live performance and sporting events in Australia is large. The market for tickets consists of a primary ticket market where tickets are first sold and purchased, and a secondary ticket market where tickets are onsold or scalped.

Ticket reselling practices can cause a number of consumer harms including consumers being misled about the tickets they are purchasing due to information asymmetries in the secondary market which prevent them from making informed purchasing decisions; inflated ticket prices which can erode the consumer surplus; exposure to the risk of ticket cancellation because of contraventions of ticket terms and conditions; and exposure to potential scams and frauds because unofficial ticket resale websites provide a platform for deception. In addition, consumers’ fair access to tickets can also be undermined by the use of ticket-buying bots.

On 31 August 2017, the Legislative and Governance Forum on Consumer Affairs noted that Treasury would undertake a regulatory impact assessment of ticket onselling. This consultation paper examines the issue of ticket reselling and presents five options to reduce consumer detriment.